On Friday, 25 September, the preliminary findings of research led by economist Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay on the relative effectiveness of non-custodial sentences will be presented at a workshop at the University of Birmingham.

There is a shaky evidence base for incredibly long sentences (100 years plus), Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Birmingham argues in a recent post on The Conversation.

Following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that life sentences without parole are a breach of human rights, the government has proposed extra long sentences as an alternative.